| Photo Information |
Copyright: Tanja Almazan (sily)
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 238 W: 6 N: 391]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-n-g.gif) (1893) |
| Genre: Animals |
| Medium: Color |
| Date Taken: 2008-10-03 |
| Categories: Insects |
| Camera: Canon PowerShot A710 IS |
| Exposure: f/4, 1/320 seconds |
| More Photo Info: [view] |
| Photo Version: Original Version |
| Date Submitted: 2008-10-17 4:32 |
| Viewed: 856 |
| Points: 0 |
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Xylocopa violacea
Carpenter bee
Carpenter bees are solitary insects that do not form colonies. Male and female carpenter bees overwinter as adults within their old nest gallery. Adults emerge in the spring (April and early May) and mate. There is one generation per year.
The males are not long lived, and the female carpenter bee prepares the nest. Gallery construction is a time- and energy-consuming process, and the female will preferentially refurbish an old nest rather than excavate a new one. When constructing a new nest, the female uses her strong jaws (mandibles) to excavate a clean-cut, round nest entrance hole on the lateral surface of wood in an exposed or unexposed location. This hole is slightly less than 1/2-inch wide, approximately the diameter of her body. She bores into the wood perpendicular to the grain for one to two inches then makes a right angle turn (~90°) and excavates along the wood grain for four to six inches to create a gallery (tunnel). She excavates the gallery at the rate of about one inch in six days.
The female bee creates a series of provisioned brood cells in the excavated gallery. The larval provision consists of a mixture of pollen and regurgitated nectar formed into a ball. The female forms a food ball at the far end of an excavated gallery, lays an egg on top of the mass, and then walls off the brood cell with a plug of chewed wood pulp. A female often creates six to 10 partitioned brood cells in a linear row in one gallery, and she dies soon thereafter. Larvae feed on the pollen/nectar food mass, which is sufficient food for them to develop to the adult stage.
The life cycle (egg, larva, pupa, adult) is completed in approximately seven weeks, although developmental time may vary depending on the temperature. The new adults typically remain in their gallery for several weeks then chew through the cell partitions and venture outside in late August. They collect and store pollen in the existing galleries, but also spend much of their time just huddled together inside a gallery. These new adults hibernate in galleries because they require shelter during the winter. They then emerge the following spring.
Carpenter bees nest in a wide range of softwoods and hardwoods, particularly if the wood is weathered. Eastern species of carpenter bees prefer softwoods such as cedar, redwood, cypress, pine, and fir. The bees can more easily tunnel through woods that are soft and that have a straight grain. Western species of carpenter bees often nest in oak, eucalyptus, and redwood. |
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